1. BSR | Stakeholder Mapping 1
Introduction
Stakeholder mapping is Step 2 in the BSR Five-Step Approach to Stakeholder
Engagement. Mapping is an important step to understanding who your key
stakeholders are, where they come from, and what they are looking for in
relationship to your business. To be most effective, this process should be driven
by an engagement strategy developed in Step 1: Engagement Strategy.
What Is Stakeholder Mapping?
Stakeholder mapping is a collaborative process of research, debate, and
discussion that draws from multiple perspectives to determine a key list of
stakeholders across the entire stakeholder spectrum. Mapping can be broken
down into four phases:
1. Identifying: listing relevant groups, organizations, and people
2. Analyzing: understanding stakeholder perspectives and interests
3. Mapping: visualizing relationships to objectives and other stakeholders
4. Prioritizing: ranking stakeholder relevance and identifying issues
The process of stakeholder mapping is as important as the result, and the quality
of the process depends heavily on the knowledge of the people participating.
Action: Gather a cross-functional group of internal participants to engage in this
process. Identify sources external to the company who may have important
knowledge about or perspective on the issues, and reach out to these sources
for input and participation. Finally, identify a resource who can facilitate your work
through the following activities. Capture all your work in writing to help with future
steps.
1.1 IDENTIFYING
The first step in the mapping process is to understand that there is no magic list
of stakeholders. The final list will depend on your business, its impacts, and your
current engagement objectives—as a result it should not remain static. This list
will change as the environment around you evolves and as stakeholders
themselves make decisions or change their opinions.
Action: Brainstorm a list of stakeholders without screening, including everyone
who has an interest in your objectives today and who may have one tomorrow.
Where possible, identify individuals. Use the following list to help you brainstorm:
 Owners (e.g. investors, shareholders, agents, analysts, and ratings agencies)
 Customers (e.g. direct customers, indirect customers, and advocates)
 Employees (e.g. current employees, potential employees, retirees, representatives,
and dependents)
 Industry (e.g. suppliers, competitors, industry associations, industry opinion leaders,
and media)
Stakeholder Mapping
November 2011
FeedbackLoop
BSR’s Five-Step Approach to
Stakeholder Engagement
Who Is This Approach For?
This executive introduction to
stakeholder mapping:
• Reinforces the importance
of stakeholder mapping as
a process
• Helps businesses organize
an internal mapping team
and begin brainstorming
• Produces a prioritized list
of stakeholders with
relevant issues

2. BSR | Stakeholder Mapping 2
 Community (e.g. residents near company facilities, chambers of commerce, resident
associations, schools, community organizations, and special interest groups)
 Environment (e.g. nature, nonhuman species, future generations, scientists,
ecologists, spiritual communities, advocates, and NGOs)
 Government (e.g. public authorities, and local policymakers; regulators; and opinion
leaders)
 Civil society organizations (e.g. NGOs, faith-based organizations, and labor unions)
Here are some additional considerations to help you brainstorm:
 Learn from past and ongoing engagement: Look at your organization’s
existing engagement activities. What are the objectives of these activities?
What stakeholders communicate regularly with your company? What groups
do they cover well? Where can you reach beyond this existing comfort zone
to engage with lesser-known stakeholders?
 Be forward thinking: Consider potential stakeholders from new markets,
new technologies, new customers, and new impending regulations.
Depending on your objectives, the relevant stakeholders you need to engage
with may not play the usual sustainability roles but may instead serve other
functions relevant to your business.
 Be diverse: Make sure to include a rich diversity of stakeholder expertise,
geography, and tactics from across the spectrum. This is an opportunity to
reach out and mix the old with the new, including individuals from each of the
following stakeholder categories: influencers, collaborators, advocators, and
implementation partners.
 Be social: Social media provides an unparalleled opportunity to identify and
reach lesser-known stakeholder groups. Canvas blogs, forums, networking,
reviews, and news sites to discover stakeholders relevant to your business
and to learn about their interest in your activities.
 Be aware: People have a tendency to focus on formal authorities in the
mapping process, but the loudest voices or heaviest campaigners are not
necessarily your key stakeholders. Step back and add silent members to
your list because they may have a hidden wealth of expertise.
1.2 ANALYZING
Once you have identified a list of stakeholders, it is useful to do further analysis
to better understand their relevance and the perspective they offer, to understand
their relationship to the issue(s) and each other, and to prioritize based on their
relative usefulness for this engagement. BSR has developed a list of criteria to
help you analyze each identified stakeholder:
• Contribution (value): Does the stakeholder have information, counsel, or
expertise on the issue that could be helpful to the company?
• Legitimacy: How legitimate is the stakeholder’s claim for engagement?
• Willingness to engage: How willing is the stakeholder to engage?
• Influence: How much influence does the stakeholder have? (You will need
to clarify “who” they influence, e.g., other companies, NGOs, consumers,
investors, etc.)
• Necessity of involvement: Is this someone who could derail or delegitimize
the process if they were not included in the engagement?
Action: Use these five criteria to create and populate a chart with short
descriptions of how stakeholders fulfill them. Assign values (low, medium, or
high) to these stakeholders. This first data set will help you decide which
stakeholders to engage. See example that follows.
About BSR
A leader in corporate
responsibility since 1992,
BSR works with its global
network of more than 250
member companies to
develop sustainable business
strategies and solutions
through consulting, research,
and cross-sector collab-
oration. With offices in Asia,
Europe, and North America,
BSR uses its expertise in the
environment, human rights,
economic development, and
governance and account-
ability to guide global
companies toward creating a
just and sustainable world.
Visit www.bsr.org for more
information.

3. BSR | Stakeholder Mapping 3
Stakeholder Contribution Legitimacy
Willingness to
Engage
Influence
Necessity of
Involvement
SH1
High: Knowledge in X
issue is of value to the
company
High: Directly
affected by our
company’s activity
High: Proactive
group that is
already engaging
Low: Relatively
unknown group
Low: Not an
outspoken
stakeholder
SH2 Medium Medium High Medium Medium
SH3 Low Low Medium Low Medium
SH4 Low Medium Low Medium Medium
SH5 High Medium Low High High
1.3 MAPPING
Mapping stakeholders is a visual exercise and analysis tool that you can use to
further determine which stakeholders are most useful to engage with. Mapping
allows you to see where stakeholders stand when evaluated by the same key
criteria and compared to each other and helps you visualize the often complex
interplay of issues and relationships created in the criteria chart above.
Action: Draw a mapping as follows to identify key stakeholders.
1. Draw a quadrant using two axes labeled “Low” to “High.”
2. Add “Expertise,” “Willingness,” and “Value” to the criteria chart, as above.
3. Assign “Expertise” to the Y-axis and “Willingness” to the X-axis
4. Discuss and debate where each stakeholder falls.
5. Plot the stakeholders on the grid.
6. Use small, medium, and large circle sizes to denote their “Value.”
7. To illustrate relationships, use arrows to depict “Influence.”
Consider quadrants, circle size, and influence arrows when prioritizing.
Sample Mapping
Expertise ValueWillingness
Quadrant Tactics
(Tactics discussed further
in Step 3: Preparation)

4. BSR | Stakeholder Mapping 4
Note: This is just an illustrative mapping example, and your approach may vary
depending on your needs: You may need to use more or less criteria in Analysis
depending on the mix of your stakeholder list; more ambitious objectives may require a
more strategic, detailed Mapping; and your process may be influenced by outside
variables such as tools and frameworks already in place at your company. Look closely at
your needs and decide whether this example will work for you as is.
1.4 PRIORITIZING STAKEHOLDERS AND IDENTIFYING ISSUES
It is not practical and usually not necessary to engage with all stakeholder groups
with the same level of intensity all of the time. Being strategic and clear about
whom you are engaging with and why, before jumping in, can help save both
time and money.
Action: Look closely at stakeholder issues and decide whether they are material
to your engagement objectives, asking yourself the following questions:
Combined with your criteria chart and mapping, use issue materiality to rank your
stakeholders into a prioritized engagement list. You should now have captured
the most relevant issues and the most relevant stakeholders.
Have You Developed the “Right” List?
The key is not to agonize over whether your stakeholder list is “right.” By working
through the four steps in the mapping process you will have created a robust,
relevant, prioritized stakeholder list—but it will change over time. Instead, focus
on whether your list will help you further prepare for your engagement activities.
Action: Answer the following questions to see if you are ready to move on:
 Is our list focused on relevant stakeholders who are important to our current and future
efforts?
 Do we have a good understanding of where stakeholders are coming from, what they
may want, whether they would be interested in engaging with our organization, and
why?
 How can we further understand and qualify these stakeholders? Through discussions
with internal colleagues? Reading reference reports? Finding specific blogs or Twitter
accounts to follow?
 Based on our prioritized stakeholders, can we define a granular level of engagement?
Will this list inform tactics, formats, and investment considerations?
 Have we given thought to what type of resources (expertise, people, and budget) we
need to support our engagement strategy and follow-up activities?
 What are the issues for these priority stakeholders?
 Which issues do all stakeholders most frequently express?
 Are the real issues apparent and relevant to our engagement objectives?
Interested in
Learning More?
Learn more about BSR
Stakeholder Engagement
Consulting Services.
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5. BSR | Stakeholder Mapping 5
Next Step: Think Tactics
You are ready to move on to preparing engagement goals, tactics, and format. In
Steps 3 and 4: Preparation and Engagement you will better prepare for the
engagement by more deeply examining your stakeholders to understand their
interests, concerns, and positions. With this knowledge you can frame and lead
the process of engagement to anticipate their needs. Step 3 and 4 will also show
you how to match the method of engagement to the issue and to the specific
stakeholder, considering the level of formality, ease, and risk associated with
certain engagement formats.
Contact
For more information, contact BSR at:
Americas: Eric Olson
eolson@bsr.org
Asia: Jeremy Prepscius
jprepscius@bsr.org
Europe: Farid Baddache
fbaddache@bsr.org